Tuesday, January 12, 2016

As you probably know, to arrive at a judgment as to
what are the "Best" American short stories for the year, the series
editor Heidi Pitlor reads stories from approximately 300 nationally distributed
American or Canadian periodicals to come up
with what she thinks are the 120 "Best." She then sends them to a guest editor who
chooses what he or she thinks are the 20 "Best" stories out of those
120. Pitlor writes a brief
"Foreword," the guest editor writes a brief "Introduction."
Each author of the 20 chosen stories writes a "Contributor" note,
which includes a one-paragraph bio and a few paragraphs about the story,
usually its origin and development. A list of the 100 stories chosen by Pitlor
but not by the guest editor is appended.

In her Foreword this year, Pitlor reminds us that the
2015 volume is the hundredth volume of The
Best American Short Stories. To commemorate the centennial celebration of
the series, American short story writer Lorrie Moore chose 40 stories from the
more than two thousand that have been published in the series over the years,
and Heidi Pitlor provides some commentary on the trends marked by the stories
decade by decade.

Here is the table of contents of the centennial volume 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories

In 2000, John Updike chose
55 stories for a volume entitled Best
American Short Stories of the Century. Here is the table of contents of that
volume of stories from 1915 to 1998.

·Zelig /

·Benjamin Rosenblatt

·

·Little selves /

·Mary Lerner

·

·Jury of her peers /

·Susan Glaspell

·

·Other woman /

·Sherwood Anderson

·

·Golden honeymoon /

·Ring Lardner

·

·Blood-burning moon /

·Jean Toomer

·

·Killers /

·Ernest Hemingway

·

·Resurrection of a life /

·William Saroyan

·

·Christmas gift /

·Robert Penn Warren

·

·Bright and morning star /

·Richard Wright

·

·Hitch-hikers /

·Eudora Welty

·

·Peach stone /

·Paul Horgan

·

·"That in Aleppo once ..." /

·Vladimir Nabokov

·

·Interior castle /

·Jean Stafford

·

·Miami-New York /

·Martha Gellhorn

·

·Second tree from the corner /

·E.B. White

·

·Farmer's children /

·Elizabeth Bishop

·

·Death of a favorite /

·J.F. Powers

·

·Resemblance between a violin case and a coffin /

·Tennessee Williams

·

·Country husband /

·John Cheever

·

·Greenleaf /

·Flannery O'Connor

·

·Ledge /

·Lawrence Sargent Hall

·

·Defender of the faith /

·Philip Roth

·

·Criers and kibitzers, kibitzers and criers /

·Stanley Elkin

·

·German refugee /

·Bernard Malamud

·

·Where are you going, where have you been? /

·Joyce Carol Oates

·

·Rotifer /

·Mary Ladd Gavell

·

·Gold Coast /

·James Alan McPherson

·

·Key /

·Isaac Bashevis Singer

·

·Cty of churches /

·Donald Barthelme

·

·How to win /

·Rosellen speaks /

·Harold Brodkey

·

·Silver dish /

·Saul Bellow

·

·Gesturing /

·John Updike

·

·Shawl /

·Cynthia Ozick

·

·Where I'm calling from /

·Raymond Carver

·

·Janus /

·Ann Beattie

·

·Way we live now /

·Susan Sontag

·

·Things they carried /

·Tim O'Brien

·

·Meneseteung /

·Alice Munro

·

·You're ugly, too /

·Lorrie Moore

·

·I want to live! /

·Thom Jones

·

·In the gloaming /

·Alice Elliott Dark

·

·Proper library /

·Carolyn Ferrell

·

·Birthmates /

·Gish Jen

·

·Soon /

·Pam Durban

·

·Half-skinned steer /

·Annie Proulx

·

·The best girlfriend you never had /

·Pam Houston.

You might
want to quibble and quarrel with these choices, but remember, the editors
Lorrie Moore and John Updike had to choose from the stories that had already
been chosen by past editors of Best
American Short Stories. And they also had to "make a book," with
all the demands for variety of subject matter, theme, locale, style, etc. that
that "making a book" imposes.

I am now
reading the twenty new stories chosen by T. C. Boyle for the 2015 volume of BASS, as it is sometimes not-so-elegantly called. I will post a blog
commentary on the first ten stories in that volume in a few days.

No comments:

Tenth Anniversary of My Blog

Friday, Nov. 16, is the tenth anniversary of my blog. I have been taking some time off because I have been working on a new book on the short story. I have submitted a proposal to a publisher and am waiting for a reply. I will let you know when I hear from them. Thank you for continuing to read essays in my archives.

Now Available from Amazon in paperback and Kindle

Click cover to go to Amazon and read the Introduction and first chapter.

Dubliners Centenial

One hundred years ago, the great collection of stories Dubliners by James Joyce appeared. If you are interested in my comments on that collection, see my posts in April 2012 when the book was featured in Dublin's "One City, One Book."